BEIRUT: The Lebanese Armed Forces on Wednesday refuted rumors that Israel had agreed to cede the 13 disputed points along the land border with Lebanon in the latter’s favor.
The rumors had suggested the Israeli consent was “part of the process to clarify the borders in exchange for the removal of a Hezbollah tent that was erected in June on the Kfar Chouba hills, located on the Lebanese side occupied by Israel.”
It came after a tripartite meeting on Tuesday in Ras Al-Naqoura, on the border, chaired by the head of mission and force commander of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, Maj. Gen. Aroldo Lazaro. The participants included Lebanese army officers led by Brig. Gen. Mounir Shehadeh, who is the Lebanese government’s coordinator with UNIFIL, and a delegation of Israeli officers.
On Wednesday, Lebanon’s army command said its representatives at the meeting “discussed the 13 points that Lebanon had reservations about on the Blue Line, considering them violations, but an agreement had not been reached. It was decided to maintain contacts and meetings under the auspices of the United Nations.”
The Blue Line, also known as the “withdrawal line,” is a border demarcation between Lebanon and Israel set by the UN in June 2000 to help determine whether Israeli forces had fully withdrawn from Lebanese territory, but it is not considered an international border.
Andrea Tenenti, the official spokesperson for UNIFIL, said: “The discussions taking place in the tripartite meetings are confidential and the media reports issued on Wednesday contain speculation that does not accurately reflect the discussions that took place on Tuesday.
“Such reports based on unconfirmed rumors have the potential to jeopardize the progress achieved so far in reducing tensions and advancing discussions on unresolved matters along the Blue Line.
“The intention is to continue with the discussions under the auspices of UNIFIL, with the ultimate objective of addressing all issues along the Blue Line.”
The UN recognizes the borders between Lebanon and Palestine, which were demarcated in 1923 and approved by the League of Nations. The Armistice Agreement of 1949, which formally ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, was based on these borders. It obliges Israel to respect Lebanon’s internationally recognized boundaries, stipulating that the Armistice Demarcation Line should follow the international boundary between Lebanon and Palestine.
Retired Lebanese Army Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman Chehaitli told Arab News he was surprised that the issue of land border demarcation had been discussed during the meeting in Ras Al-Naqoura.
“The borders have already been drawn and recognized,” he said. “The dispute revolves around 13 points on the Blue Line, which is not a border line.”
Amos Hochstein, the US special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, previously led indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel that concluded last year with the agreed demarcation of maritime borders between the two countries.
He visited Lebanon at the end of August this year and held meetings with Lebanese officials, during which he was briefed on the start of the process of exploring Lebanese waters for potentially commercial quantities of gas.
Reports indicated that during the meetings Hochstein presented “American ideas related to land border demarcation to discuss with Lebanon, following his success in demarcating maritime borders.”
Lebanese authorities oppose the use of the term “demarcation” for its land borders, on the grounds that they are already defined. They say the focus should be on “clarifying” the borders and addressing disputed points, and on the need to prevent Israeli violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was intended to resolve the 2006 Lebanon War between Hezbollah and Israel.
Chehaitli, the retired Lebanese army officer, said: “The approval of Lebanon and Israel regarding the US message on maritime border demarcation did not align with the level of agreement in form. What happened cannot be viewed merely as measures to facilitate economic benefits; Lebanon’s maritime borders are not demarcated, unlike its land borders.
“Lebanon should not engage in discussions about demarcating its land borders. Such actions would be in violation of the Constitution, as Article 2 states that no part of Lebanese territory may be ceded.”
Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said on July 11: “Resolving issues on the southern border does not imply normalization. There are 13 disputed points along the Blue Line with Israel, with agreement on seven and six remaining points in dispute.”
The disputed points along the 120-kilometer Blue Line stretch from Shebaa Farms in the southeast to the town of Al-Naqoura in the southwest.
Lebanese Army denies land border agreement with Israel, says Blue Line disputes remain
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Lebanese Army denies land border agreement with Israel, says Blue Line disputes remain
- After a meeting of military officers from both countries on Tuesday, rumors circulated that Israel had agreed to cede 13 disputed points along the southern border to Lebanon
- Lebanon’s army command said ‘13 points that Lebanon had reservations about on the Blue Line’ were discussed during the meeting ‘but an agreement had not been reached’
Battle for Khartoum wrecks key Sudan oil refinery
- Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
- “Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP
AL-JAILI, Sudan: The once-pristine white oil tanks of Sudan’s largest refinery have been blackened by nearly two years of devastating war, leaving the country heavily dependent on fuel imports it can ill afford.
The Chinese-built Al-Jaili refinery, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Khartoum, was captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), just days after fighting with the regular army erupted in April 2023.
For months, artillery exchanges battered the facility, forcing a complete shutdown in July 2023.
The regular army finally recaptured the refinery in January as part of a wider offensive to retake greater Khartoum but operations remain at a standstill, with vast sections of the plant lying in ruins.
Towering storage tanks, which once gleamed under the sun, are now cloaked in soot and the ground is littered with twisted pipes and pools of leaked oil.
“Some units have been completely destroyed and are now out of service,” the refinery’s deputy director, Sirajuddin Muhammad, told AFP. “Other sections need to be entirely replaced.”
Before the war, Al-Jaili processed up to 100,000 barrels per day of crude, meeting nearly half of Sudan’s fuel needs.
“The refinery was crucial for Sudan, covering 50 percent of the country’s petrol needs, 40 percent of its diesel and 50 percent of its cooking gas,” economist Khalid el-Tigani told AFP.
“With its closure, Sudan has been forced to rely on imports to fill the gap, with fuel now being brought in by the private sector using foreign currency.”
And hard currency is in desperately short supply in Sudan after the deepening conflict between Sudan’s rival generals uprooted more than 12 million people, devastating the nation’s economy.
The Sudanese pound now trades at around 2,400 to the dollar, compared to 600 before the war, leaving imported goods beyond the means of most people.
During the army’s recapture of the refinery in January, what remained of it was gutted by a massive fire.
The RSF blamed the blaze on “barrel bombs” dropped by the air force.
The regular army accused the RSF of deliberately torching it in a “desperate attempt to destroy the country’s infrastructure.”
An AFP team visited the refinery under military escort on Tuesday. Burnt out vehicles lined the roadside as the convoy passed through abandoned neighborhoods.
As the refinery grew nearer, the blackened skeletons of storage tanks loomed in the distance and the acrid smell of burnt oil grew stronger.
The control rooms, where engineers once monitored operations, had been completely gutted.
Pools of water left over from the firefighting effort in January had yet to drain away.
Built in two phases, in 2000 and 2006, the plant cost $2.7 billion to build, with China taking the lead role.
Beijing still retains a 10 percent stake, while the Sudanese state controls the remaining 90 percent.
Refinery officials estimate it will cost at least $1.3 billion to get the refinery working again.
“Some parts must be manufactured in their country of origin, which determines the timeline of repairs,” Muhammad said.
An engineer at the refinery, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that even if Sudan secured the necessary financing, “it would still take at least three years to get this place running again.”
The discovery of large domestic oil reserves in the 1970s and 1980s transformed the Sudanese economy.
But when South Sudan seceded in 2011, the fledgling nation took with it about three-quarters of the formerly united country’s oil output.
South Sudan remains dependent on Sudanese pipelines to export its oil, paying transit fees to the rump country that are one of its few remaining sources of hard currency.
But the war has put that arrangement at risk.
In February last year, the pipeline used to export South Sudanese oil through Port Sudan on the country’s Red Sea coast was knocked out by fighting between the army and the RSF.
Exports were halted for nearly a year, resuming only in January.
German foreign minister on Syria visit reopens Damascus embassy
- Baerbock reopened the mission on her second visit there since the fall of president Bashar Assad over three months ago
- “The horrific outbreaks of violence two weeks ago have caused a massive loss of trust,” said Baerbock
DAMASCUS: Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock officially reopened her country’s embassy in war-ravaged Syrian Arab Republic during a one-day visit to Damascus on Thursday.
Baerbock reopened the mission, which closed in 2012 amid the Syrian civil war, on her second visit there since the fall of president Bashar Assad over three months ago.
Her trip also came weeks after sectarian massacres claimed more than 1,500 lives on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority.
“The horrific outbreaks of violence two weeks ago have caused a massive loss of trust,” said Baerbock. “The targeted killing of civilians is a terrible crime.”
She called on the transitional government of interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa to “control the actions of the groups within its own ranks and hold those responsible accountable.”
But she stressed that “we want to support the Syrians together with our European partners and the United Nations” as they rebuild their country.
Germany on Monday announced 300 million euros ($325 million) for reconstruction aid in Syria, as part of a donor conference that gathered total pledges of 5.8 billion euros.
A German foreign ministry source said Berlin had officially reopened its embassy in Syria, with an initially small diplomatic team working in Damascus.
Consular affairs and visas would continue to be handled from the Lebanese capital Beirut for practical reasons and due to the security situation in Syria.
The ministry source said that “Germany has a paramount interest in a stable Syria. We can better contribute to the difficult task of stabilization on the ground.
“We can build important diplomatic contacts and thus, among other things, push for an inclusive political transition process that takes into account the interests of all population groups.”
The source added that “with our diplomats on the ground, we can now also once again engage in important work with civil society. And we can respond directly and immediately to serious negative developments.”
Baerbock in her statement warned Syria’s interim authorities that a “new start” with Europe was conditional on it delivering security to all Syrians, regardless of faith, gender or ethnicity.
She said many Syrians “are scared that life in the future Syria will not be safe for all Syrians.”
In the days after March 6, Syria’s coast was gripped by the worst wave of violence since Assad’s overthrow.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,500 civilians, most of them Alawites, the minority to which Assad belongs.
Since Assad’s overthrow, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites in Syria, arguing the weapons must not fall into the hands of the new authorities whom it considers jihadists, and deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.
Baerbock said “the influence of foreign actors has brought nothing but chaos to Syria in the past.”
“Even today, attacks on Syrian territory threaten the country’s stability. All sides are called upon to exercise maximum military restraint and not to torpedo the intra-Syrian unification process.”
Turkiye detains 37 over ‘provocative’ social media posts following arrest of Istanbul mayor
- Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime
- Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate
ISTANBUL: Turkish authorities detained 37 people for sharing “provocative” content on social media, the interior minister said Thursday, pressing ahead with a crackdown on dissenting voices that escalated with the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul, a potential challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested after a dawn raid on his residence on Wednesday as part of investigations into alleged corruption and terror links. Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.
The detention of a popular opposition leader and key Erdogan rival deepened concerns over democracy and sparked protests in Istanbul and elsewhere, despite a four-day ban on demonstrations in the city and road closures. On Thursday, hundreds of university students held a peaceful march in Istanbul to protest the detentions.
It also caused a shockwave in the financial market, triggering temporary halts in trading to prevent panic selling.
Critics see the crackdown as an effort by Erdogan to extend his more then two-decade rule following significant losses by the ruling party in local elections last year. Government officials reject claims that legal actions against opposition figures are politically motivated and insist that the courts operate independently.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said authorities identified 261 social media accounts that shared provocative posts inciting public hatred or crime, including 62 that are run by people based abroad. At least 37 of the suspected owners were detained and efforts to detain other suspects were continuing, he wrote on the X social media platform.
Imamoglu’s arrest came just days before he was expected to be nominated as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in a primary scheduled for Sunday. The party’s leader has said the primary will go ahead as planned.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern over the mayor’s detention, saying it was a “very, very bad sign” for Turkiye’s relations with the European Union.
Scholz said it was “depressing for democracy in Turkiye, but certainly also depressing for the relationship between Europe and Turkiye.”
“We can only call for this to end immediately and for opposition and government to stand in competition with each other, and not the opposition being brought to court,” he said.
Prosecutors accused Imamoglu of exploiting his position for financial gain, including the improper allocation of government contracts.
In a separate investigation, prosecutors also accuse Imamoglu of aiding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, by allegedly forming an alliance with Kurdish groups for the Istanbul municipal elections. The PKK, behind a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye, is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, Washington and other allies.
It was not clear when authorities would begin questioning the mayor, who can be detained without charges for up to four days. Analysts say Imamoglu could be removed from office and replaced by a “trustee mayor” if he is formally charged with links to the PKK.
Before his detention, Imamoglu already faced multiple criminal cases that could result in prison sentences and a political ban. He is also appealing a 2022 conviction for insulting members of Turkiye’s Supreme Electoral Council, a case that could result in a political ban.
This week, a university nullified his diploma, citing alleged irregularities in his 1990 transfer from a private university in northern Cyprus to its business faculty, a decision Imamoglu said he would challenge. The decision effectively bars him from running for president, since the position requires candidates to be university graduates.
Imamoglu was elected mayor of Turkiye’s largest city in March 2019, a historic blow to Erdogan and the president’s Justice and Development Party, which had controlled Istanbul for a quarter-century. Erdogan’s party pushed to void the municipal election results in the city of 16 million, alleging irregularities.
The challenge resulted in a repeat of the election a few months later, which Imamoglu also won. The mayor retained his seat following local elections last year, during which his party made significant gains against Erdogan’s governing party.
UK bomb disposal expert injured in Gaza blast
- Ordnance ‘fired at or dropped on’ UN facility, killing 1, injuring 4 others
- Mines Advisory Group: ‘Attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law’
LONDON: A bomb disposal expert from the UK has been injured in an explosion in Gaza.
The unnamed 51-year-old was wounded at a UN facility in Deir Al-Balah on Wednesday. Four others were injured and a UN worker was killed in the incident.
The Briton, who was working in Gaza as an explosive ordnance disposal expert for the Mines Advisory Group, was treated locally before being moved to a hospital in Israel.
Darren Cormack, the charity’s CEO, told the BBC that the man was conducting an explosive hazards assessment at a UN Office for Project Services facility when the explosion occurred.
“The UN has confirmed that today’s incident did not occur in the course of normal EOD operations and resulted from ordnance being fired at or dropped on the building in which the team was working,” Cormack said.
“It is shocking that a humanitarian facility should be subject to attacks of this nature and that humanitarian workers are being killed and injured in the line of duty.”
Cormack added: “Attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law.”
Health authorities in Gaza said the explosion was a result of Israeli military activity.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein posted on X: “The circumstances of the incident are being investigated. We emphasize that the initial examination found no connection to IDF (Israel Defense Forces) activity whatsoever.”
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, told the BBC: “We are making it clear that all military operations have to be conducted in a way that ensures that all civilians are respected and protected.”
UNOPS chief Jorge Moreira da Silva said the explosion was “not an accident” and described the situation in Gaza as “unconscionable.”
Putin offers cooperation to Syrian leader, backs efforts to stabilize country
- Russia, which has two strategically important military bases in Syria, was one of the main supporters of former President Bashar Assad
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a message to Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa supporting efforts to stabilize the situation in the country and saying Russia is ready to engage in “practical cooperation,” Russian state news agency TASS reported on Thursday.
Putin confirmed “Russia’s continuing readiness to develop practical cooperation with the Syrian leadership on the whole range of issues on the bilateral agenda in order to strengthen traditionally friendly Russian-Syrian relations,” it quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Syria has been rocked by a wave of sectarian killings. The Kremlin
said
earlier this month it wanted to see a united and “friendly” Syria because instability there could affect the whole of the Middle East.
Russia, which has two strategically important military bases in Syria, was one of the main supporters of former President Bashar Assad, who fled to Russia after he was toppled in December.
